Pure O (OCD) anyone?

[DrSketchpad]

Have anyone of you experienced this?

It has got to be the most annoying thing. Y'know how bipolar disorder will take you're mood high and push it right back down? It's like that but instead of acting directly with mood it works with my certainty.

Here's the process:

A wild intrusive thought/general worry appears!

What will you do?
1. Analyse the problem until you know it to NOT be in fact a real problem.
2. Gain an addiction to outside sources that will alleviate your worry.
3. Melt your brain apart from the inside-out.

or maybe even

4.Keep yourself from doing ANYTHING because that would somehow bring something to your attention that would add more reason to worry.

You may have noticed that I'm drawing an analogy to Pokemon. The difference being the "RUN" option isn't there and rarely will you ever be able to get a battle to the faint. Rather, the worry might run away after awhile when it gets bored of you or whatever.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with "pure O" OCD here's a tasty link for ya:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primarily_Obsessional_OCD

I hate whining as much as the next guy, but I thought I'd share my experiences/thoughts in hopes others would do the same, because I think people do that or whatever.

 

[RandomGeneratedName]

I learnt to acknowledge, not feel any thing about, not cast judgement, then wave bye bye to it. "next please" (or next thought please). You can train yourself to deal with it basically.


I remember when I first remembered "dem thoughts" oh man that sucked.
You CAN "get over it" or minimise the affect it has on you though. I've done it myself.


Actually had this open in a tab.
http://www.steveseay.com/pure-o-ocd-obsessions-mental-rituals/

Pretty decent site for things OCD.

Might wanna check out hyper-responsibility (OCD) as well seperately. Only heard about it myself a few days ago.

 

[RandomGeneratedName]

I hate whining as much as the next guy, but I thought I'd share my experiences/thoughts in hopes others would do the same, because I think people do that or whatever.

I actually never read any of it as whining, btw.

Although saying "I hate whining as much as the next guy" is kinda whiny"

Don't worry about it.
You should see what they're (I have been part) like on the ADHD forum when someone is off on an emotional one. It's kinda reassuring.

You were probably reinforcing your fear btw when you mentioned "I hate whining as much .. " Try being whiny (as it seems something you're concerned about?) on purpose in a post and not say any thing about it. "Exposure therapy"

Goodluck btw, OCD is a i'm starting to realise how much it impacts my life.

Check out TEA Thought Error Analysis (CBT) - which you can do at home by yourself, aiming to deal with thoughts/OCD, which is cool.

 

[DrSketchpad]

Thank you, I'll look into it.

"I hate whining as much as the next guy" isn't the result of an obsession, just didn't want to seem whiny.

Obsessions are much more clear to me now.

First a worry, then I can't think about anything else. It has a very specific "feeling" when a worry turns into an obsession.

I've got a better grip on it now. It's more annoying than absolutely inhibiting now.

 

[Yellow]

I've got a better grip on it now. It's more annoying than absolutely inhibiting now.

I'm glad that you're getting the hang of things now. When the compulsions are primarily taking place in your head, OCD is tough to crack. Outward behaviors can be addressed with a number of techniques, but they don't translate well to "Pure-O". I suppose that's why they invented an implant to treat OCD.

 

[DrSketchpad]

^Yes, I also think I would have definitely realised I had OCD earlier if I had obvious external compulsions as opposed to just NEEDING to think about unpleasant things and then maybe going outside of yourself for reassurance. The trick (although this will be like saying the trick to flying is to throw yourself at the ground and miss) is to immediately judge the worrisome thought as untrue/unimportant, and dismiss it as subtly but firmly as you can without drawing too much attention to it, otherwise that's all you will be able to think about for who knows how long.

I suppose that's why they invented an implant to treat OCD.

Huh, didn't they did haha

 

[Yellow]

^Yes, I also think I would have definitely realised I had OCD earlier if I had obvious external compulsions as opposed to just NEEDING to think about unpleasant things and then maybe going outside of yourself for reassurance. The trick (although this will be like saying the trick to flying is to throw yourself at the ground and miss) is to immediately judge the worrisome thought as untrue/unimportant, and dismiss it as subtly but firmly as you can without drawing too much attention to it, otherwise that's all you will be able to think about for who knows how long.

Huh, didn't they did haha

That's the rub, isn't it? Telling yourself not to think about something is a pretty good way to guarantee that you will think about it.

How has distraction worked for you?

Also, curiously, it just occurred to me that traditional OCD techniques may not be entirely useless. Let's say your compulsion was locking a door: a behavioral therapy could be to continue locking and unlocking a door far beyond the number of times that satisfies your obsession. It's over-satiation to help illustrate the disconnection between the obsession and compulsion and theoretically break the cycle over time.

What if you tried forcing yourself to continue thinking about something, and focus on it for much, much longer than it takes to satisfy your anxiety? Making yourself return to the thought long after your obsession allows you to let it go is essentially the same exercise turned inward.

Anyway, here's info about the implant (not that I'm suggesting it. It's for extreme cases)

 

[DrSketchpad]

I may have worded it incorrectly or maybe I have different thoughts on it now, whatever, anyways. I think the trick is to address the thought IMMEDIATELY as incorrect/something not to worry about than to think "I won't think about this I won't think about this." Yeah I understand though.

I'm not sure. Maybe. I'll have to try it sometime. The thing is I think that with traditional OCD, there is more of an actual distance between the worry and the compulsion. Something traditional you hear with regular OCD (although I haven't read much on it so take this lightly) is something like "I worry that my parents will die so I have to write this down or flip this switch" or whatever. With Pure O you do have compulsions, but it's more thinky (?) you have to prove to yourself that whatever your worried about isn't real or isn't occurring. So compulsions will be more about satisfying information that adds to the positive side of the internal tug of war argument or sometimes doing things that you know will cause the thing to be less of a problem, like locking a door if you don't want intruders or cleaning yourself if you're worried about disease. It's less arbitrary I think. The thing with pure o though is that you'll never win the "argument" unless (and this is still a maybe) you have ABSOLUTE proof that you have no need to worry or it'll sometimes just fade away- one day you'll wake up and you won't think about it.

Thanks. Yeah, I figured- it's just interesting.

 

[RandomGeneratedName]

Anyway, here's info about the implant (not that I'm suggesting it. It's for extreme cases)

Wow... that's messed up. Not sure if it's worse than ECT though.


I KNOW how debiliatating OCD can be, but I do believe it's managable/workable no matter how bad it may seem to self. (wonder if there's a BDD term for the brain?)

Something else which may help is getting amongst nature. (helped me)
Something about the broken lines/natural shapes settles the mind, compared to living in a city surrounded by block after block of straight lines and "containers" (buildings basically).

Sometimes we just need to settle our minds down enough before we can begin to try and make changes and not get swept back up by the twister.

ADHD is an example. Meds slow you down/thoughts = more managable.
Try to relax/try out the above if you can, before any OCD work.
It's so easy to get caught up in OCD sparked emotions and dragged along a focus of thought, even when you're pro-actively trying to do something about it.



You're very welcome DrSketchpad.

 

[RandomGeneratedName]

The thing with pure o though is that you'll never win the "argument" unless (and this is still a maybe) you have ABSOLUTE proof that you have no need to worry or it'll sometimes just fade away- one day you'll wake up and you won't think about it.
.

Nope, did you actually read the link I shared before? Lol.

I suffered for a long long time thinking that thinking could solve the problem.
It's just not going to happen, though. No matter how smart someone may be, it ain't going to work that way. (i'm highly confrontational to expressed limitations, and I still got nowhere with it)

"I'll be able to deal with it once I have more information about it" was one of my Pure Os favourite choices, lol. I stopped looking up body discomforts/symptoms which caused anxiety after reading that and somoatype whatever ocd related anxiety have markedly improved/almost gone.

I understand and I know how difficult it is to let go, it's not easy at all.
That site is really helpful

Finding absolute proof is just reinforcing the control. Absolute proof doesn't exist. There will always be some uncertainty in the World. You can argue and rationalise yourself all day with it, I did it myself, but it's not true, absolute proof is like perfection, it's created from our imaginations.


You're heading in the right path, keep going

 

[Architect]

Not sure I follow you quite, but I think I've experienced something similar. Mainly when I was a performing musician. I'd be careful of what I thought, as I didn't want to jinx the performance. Unfortunately there it's a actual concern, having too many stray thoughts can derail you. The best performers seem to be the ones who are pretty simple people actually with simple needs. In particular they don't think too much about stuff, they just know how to do it. Non intuitives in other words.

Anyhow I thought too much which made the whole enterprise unworkable. On OCD my INTP won has been prone to that, becoming severe at times (not now). But I've also heard that an ISTJ (I believe) son of a friend has big OCD issues.

 

[DrSketchpad]

Nope, did you actually read the link I shared before? Lol.

I suffered for a long long time thinking that thinking could solve the problem.
It's just not going to happen, though. No matter how smart someone may be, it ain't going to work that way. (i'm highly confrontational to expressed limitations, and I still got nowhere with it)

"I'll be able to deal with it once I have more information about it" was one of my Pure Os favourite choices, lol. I stopped looking up body discomforts/symptoms which caused anxiety after reading that and somoatype whatever ocd related anxiety have markedly improved/almost gone.

I understand and I know how difficult it is to let go, it's not easy at all.
That site is really helpful

Finding absolute proof is just reinforcing the control. Absolute proof doesn't exist. There will always be some uncertainty in the World. You can argue and rationalise yourself all day with it, I did it myself, but it's not true, absolute proof is like perfection, it's created from our imaginations.


You're heading in the right path, keep going

I understand however I am speaking from experience. There has been at least once I achieved total reassurance. I'll check out th site.

 

[DrSketchpad]

Not sure I follow you quite, but I think I've experienced something similar. Mainly when I was a performing musician. I'd be careful of what I thought, as I didn't want to jinx the performance. Unfortunately there it's a actual concern, having too many stray thoughts can derail you. The best performers seem to be the ones who are pretty simple people actually with simple needs. In particular they don't think too much about stuff, they just know how to do it. Non intuitives in other words.

Anyhow I thought too much which made the whole enterprise unworkable. On OCD my INTP won has been prone to that, becoming severe at times (not now). But I've also heard that an ISTJ (I believe) son of a friend has big OCD issues.

How , If I may ask, has it manifested with your son? General obsessive overthinking with smaller more unnoticeable compulsions or more compulsive and less obsessive?